is the first pic from the top?? ...its hard to make heads or tails out of the pix ....

all dead wood should be removed .. at a min ...

i cant figure what happened on these pix ...

the rest of the tree doesnt look all that bad on these pix ... except that as a babe.. it was planted about 15 feet too close to the house .. with no room for its future potential.... too bad on that ...

dont fixate on saving a mistake the prior owners made ... in tree time.. it might die .. or you might get tired of it ... that might happen in the next 5 to 10 years ... or you might decide tomorrow that it really isnt adding anything to the front of your gorgeous house.. and you'd be better off without it ...

so personally.. i wouldnt waste much energy worrying about it.. nor investing a lot of money in it ...

knowledge is power.. it would be nice to try to figure out whats going on ...

ken

ps: any chance a new roof was put on..any time in the last few years???

pps: where are you.. big city name.. might help us with disease issues.. if there are any ... or winter issues.. etc ..

Compare with photos and description here:

https://pnwhandbooks.org/plantdisease/host-disease/maple-acer-spp-verticillium-wilt

It’s a beautiful Japanese maple. I believe this is Die back of the branches. I have seen this happening to my maples. I would saw off those dead branches. I think this branch dying is more common in Japanese maples. Hope the tree has some water supply. Bayers tree and shrub liquid product protects tree from bugs and some diseases. That can be considered. It has to be put in during the beginning of the year.